Wednesday, July 25, 2007 12:16 AM CDT
Millikin students take 'Ecological Journey' to Galapagos Islands
By THERESA CHURCHILL, Staff Writer
tchurchill@herald-review.com
Imagine a place where wild animals are plentiful and do not change their behavior just because a human being happens along.
Thirteen students from Millikin University are among the lucky ones who don’t have to imagine this photographer’s paradise. Among the students was Amanda Bullock, a junior biology major from Mattoon.
They spent eight days last month exploring the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador as part of an Ecological Journeys course taught this spring by associate biology professor Judy Parrish and assistant biology professor David Horn.
“This ecosystem is 3 million years old, and all the interactions between humans and animals have been neutral,” Horn said. “This is what makes it so unique.”
Close encounters included one on the island of Espanola with a hooded mockingbird, apparently intrigued by what Kathy Collins was wearing, that came right up to investigate.
“It stopped at my feet and jumped up at me!” recalls Collins, a junior biology major from Brownsburg, Ind.
At another juncture, biology graduate Aaron Bareither of Decatur stretched out his arm to point out one bird only to discover he had created a perch for another — a Galapagos flycatcher.
Kyle O’Dea, another biology graduate from Decatur, said the experience was better than a zoo ever could be.
“Nothing can top being able to walk up to wildlife, get our picture taken and walk away without the animal flinching,” O’Dea said. “What better way to reinforce what you spent a semester learning, than going to see it in person.”
Or as Parrish put it, “If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a trip must be worth 1,000 hours in the classroom.”
Actually, students spent 90 minutes in class each week during the spring semester for the four-credit course to prepare for their journey.
This was Parrish’s 10th Ecological Journeys class, having taken students previously to Costa Rica and Alaska.
The trip to Ecuador also included three days at the Intag Cloud Forest Preserve northwest of Otavalo, where the group hiked through layers upon layers of vegetation on a path that seemed to go straight up the side of the Andes Mountains to see the cock of the rock.
“We were lucky enough to see eight,” Horn said. “Their cry sounded like it came straight from the age of the dinosaurs.”
The group also toured a sustainable farm, where shade-grown coffee and sisal were the main cash crops.
Ray Mendez, a senior biology major from Palos Heights, said the variety of reptiles amazed him but so did the contrast between the thatched huts of the cloud forest and the yacht in which they toured the islands.
“I learned a lot about birds, too,” Mendez said. “Before the trip, they all looked the same to me.”
Collins said she was thrilled to swim with white-tipped reef sharks and to see Galapagos penguins — one of the smallest species of penguin in the world.
“It wasn’t like going to a park,” she said. “We saw animals being born and animals about to die.
“It was interesting to see the whole life cycle.”
Contact Theresa Churchill at tchurchill@herald-review.com or 421-7978.
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